In the Spartan mind, as in that of the Greeks of the archaic and classical periods more generally, men lived in a world in which the manifestations of supernatural powers were to be found everywhere. One had to secure the favor of such powers by appropriate actions. This sort of thinking and behavior can be seen to have underpinned the entirety of the young Spartans’ education, and it can also be seen to have informed the conduct of adults in war and peace alike.
Initiation and communal life under the care of the gods
According to Polemon of Ilium, an author whose floruit was ca. 190 BC, the nurses ( titthai) of young Spartan boys used to participate in a cult associated with their nurturing function, as its name reveals: the festival of the Tithenidia was organized in honor of Artemis Corythalia, and held before her image (FHG iii 142 fr. 86, at Athenaeus 139a-b).
According to Herodotus, growing girls were placed under the protection of Helen, wife of Menelaus (on Helen at Sparta see Calame 1977:1.333-50; 1981; 2001:191-202). The historian clearly implies that Helen was supposed to sponsor their marriages. The historian gives us an aition, an explanatory tale, for the establishment of Helen’s cult in a temple at Therapne, above Phoibaion, to the east of Sparta. He tells how a nurse presented the ugly girl baby in her charge to the statue of Helen, and an unknown lady (Helen, we are to understand) glanced at the baby on the way out. The girl became the most beautiful of all the women of Sparta (6.61; cf. also Isocrates, Encomium of Helen 63, where the fourth-century Athenian orator tells that at Therapne Helen and Menelaus have the right to receive sacrifices not as heroes but as gods; and Pausanias 3.19.9). Excavations at the Menelaion (for which see R. W.V. Catling 1992) have produced two archaic objects with dedications, one to Helen and Menelaus (the pair constitute Sparta’s royal couple in the Homeric poems, as is well known), and the other to Helen alone (see Catling and Cavanagh 1976).
But other powers too watched over the transition to adult life. The significance of Orthia’s cult can be gauged from the numbers of archaic period lead figurines found in her sanctuary - in excess of 100,000. These figurines (for the dating of which see Boardman 1963) are between 2.5 and 8 centimeters high and represent a winged female figure (Orthia herself?), warriors, animals, etc. (Fitzhardinge 1980:118-21, with illustration; Wace 1929). Orthia’s Spartan sanctuary seems to have been the theater for an initiatory ordeal in which young men stole cheeses from the deity’s altar while being whipped (Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 2.9). Later, in the Roman period, the ordeal was probably made harsher in order to provide a bloody spectacle. At this point an actual theater was built to enable a large crowd to witness the ordeal in full detail (Ducat 1995a; Kennell 1995, esp. 127-9). It was only at a late date that Orthia became ‘‘Artemis Orthia’’ (as, e. g., at Pausanias 3.16.7). Laconian inscriptions make no mention of this new name until, it seems, around AD 50 (Hodkinson 2000:300 n. 30; Woodward 1929:308-74).
But male powers also protected the activities of young men. Initiatory homosexual relationships (for the reality of which see the measured comments of Xenophon, Constitution ofthe Lacedaemonians 2.12-14) could be placed under the protection of Apollo, the mythical erastls of Hyacinthus. The association between the two figures (for which see Sergent 1984:102-17, 1986:84-96) was recalled in the iconography of the Amyclaion, the sanctuary of Apollo at Amyclae, which was built some 6 kilometers to the south of Sparta by the architect Bathycles of Magnesia in the mid-sixth century BC (Faustoferri 1996, especially 278, 292, 294). Finally, to judge from Pausanias, young men would make sacrifice, chiefly to Achilles, before fighting each other in groups on an island at Platanistas (3.14.8-10 and 20.8). Platanistas was a place ‘‘planted with plane trees,’’ the location ofwhich is uncertain. It was perhaps to the west of Sparta, on a tributary on the right back of the Eurotas. Plato, the Athenian philosopher of the fourth century BC, may imply that something similar was already taking place in his own day (Laws 633b).
Thus, young Spartiates made their gradual approach towards adulthood under the protection of deities who performed the functions of kourotrophia (‘‘child-rearing’’) for them, to a greater or lesser extent. One derivation proposed for the name Orthia sees the deity as so named because she ensured that young men grew up straight (orthos; see Calame 1977:1.289-94, 2001:165-7).
Once adult, the Spartans continued to conduct their lives with deep concern for the gods, whether in peace or war.
Gods and cults of peacetime activities
The oldest ancient text to mention the Spartan gods is the Great Rhetra, a text datable to around 700 BC that laid down the principles of political debate, which is preserved by Plutarch (Lycurgus 6.2 and 8):
After the foundation of a sanctuary of Zeus Skyllanios and Athena Skyllania, after dividing into tribes and ohai,
After establishing a 30-stronggerousia, together with archegetai, hold apellai at regular intervals between Babyka and Knakion, and in this way introduce proposals and set them aside, but the decision and sanction belongs to the people.
But if the people speaks crookedly, the elders and the archegetai are not constrained.
This text, which has been the subject of detailed commentaries (for the sundry interpretations and bibliography, see Richer 1998a:93-109; Maffi 2002), was reshaped into the form that Diodorus transmits (7.12.6). He claims to be citing a Delphic oracle, whilst supplying a text very close to the paraphrase that Plutarch attributes to Tyrtaeus (Lycurgus 6.10). We see that the two gods most anciently attested at Sparta are Zeus and Athene (the meaning of the epithet Skyllanios and its feminine version Skyllania remains uncertain). We also find here an indirect mention of Apollo, since apellai, the festivals in honor of the god, whose name is attested at Delphi, are referred to and these had to be organized on a regular basis (the Greek text literally says ‘‘from season to season’’). In the archaic period these festivals could have provided the opportunity for the convocation of the assembly of the citizens. (The term apella is improperly applied to the assembly itself; it should rather be referred to as the ekkhsia, as at Athens, and this is the term by which it is referred to in all classical period sources; cf. Ste. Croix 1972:346-7).
The overriding importance of these three divine powers is clear from other evidence: the only priests we know to have existed at Sparta in the classical period are the two kings (the two royal families, those of the Agiads and the Eurypontids, each supplied a king, concurrently). Herodotus actually tells us, ‘‘These are the prerogatives [gerea] the Spartans concede to their kings: two priesthoods, those of Zeus Lakedaimon [of Lacedaemon] and of Zeus Ouranios [Of heaven]... ’’ (6.56). His phraseology leaves it uncertain whether the king of one of the two ruling families occupied the priesthood of one of these aspects of Zeus, whilst his colleague occupied the other one. If this was the case, then, since the Agiad family seems to have enjoyed a certain pre-eminence in status (6.51-2), we might be tempted to infer that the former of the priesthoods mentioned devolved to this family. But it remains possible that the two kings exercised both priesthoods collegially. At any rate, the great importance attributed to the king of the gods at Sparta is demonstrated both by his appearance in the Great Rhetra and by the fact that he had the kings for his priests.
Athene shared other epithets with Zeus: they are Agoraios and Agoraia, patrons of the agora (Pausanias 3.11.9), Xenios and Xenia, patrons of strangers (3.11.11), and Amboulios and Amboulia, counselors (3.13.6). Zeus and Athene are also associated in coordinated sacrifices (Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 13.2). But Athene’s principal epithets were Poliouchos, ‘‘Holder of the city,’’ or, we might say, ‘‘Mistress of the city,’’ and Chalkioikos, ‘‘Of the bronze house,’’ because the walls of her temple on the Spartan acropolis were decorated with illustrated bronze panels (Pausanias 3.17.2-3; for further references, see Wide 1893:49). This temple, the work of Gitiadas, dated from the end of the sixth century. It may well have occupied a site formerly occupied by another religious building. (For this temple, and in particular on its name, see Piccirilli 1984 and the evidence collected by Musti and Torelli 1991 ad loc., 228-9. For the sanctuary’s architectural arrangement, see the brief discussion at Stibbe 1996:24-5. For its date, see Waywell 1999:6 and the references in n. 17).
Zeus and Athene aside, another god who can be seen to have watched over the general prosperity of Sparta was Apollo. Honor was done to this god each year in the Hyacinthia festival (for which see Richer 2004a, 2004b), and it is likely that this was the occasion of the annual replacement of Apollo’s chiton, tunic, which was woven in the sanctuary of the Leucippids, the wives of the Dioscuri (Pausanias 3.16.1-2; cf. also Euripides, Helen 1465). Indeed, among the many other divine powers worshiped at Sparta, the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, seem to have been the object of particular veneration. Plutarch describes their aniconic representation: ‘‘The Spartans call ancient images of the Dioscuri dokana: these consist of two parallel wooden bars, linked by crosspieces’’ ( On Fraternal Love 1 = Moralia 478a-b). This configuration seems to correspond with one found in Laconian reliefs (Figure 15.1; cf. also the Argenidas relief in the Museum ofVerona, no. 555; Tod and Wace 1906:113-18). It is also found in the modern zodiacal symbol for Gemini (II). It is noteworthy that when, in around 506 BC, according to Herodotus, a law was made at Sparta, ‘‘forbidding both kings to accompany an army on campaign [... this same law required] one of the Tyndarids similarly to be left behind [in Sparta]’’ (5.75). The Tyndarids are the Dioscuri, both being regarded as the sons of Tyndareus as opposed to Zeus, although in myth, as is well known, Castor was the son of Tyndareus and Pollux the son of Zeus. This text of Herodotus seemingly confirms that each of the vertical beams represented one of the two brothers, and their tight association with the kings on campaign may be explained by the fact that the Spartan kings were held to be descended from a pair of twins, Eurysthenes and Procles (Herodotus 6.52). Accordingly, an analogy obtained in the Spartan mind between the Dioscuri and the two kings that were responsible for the city’s military successes.
Figure 15.1 Dokana. Sparta Museum no. 588. Based on Tod and Wace 1906:193 fig.68 (catalog no. 588)
The kings owed the religious functions they performed as priests, as they did their political positions, to hereditary title. In around 330 BC Aristotle noted that the kings were generally responsible for the relations between the community as a whole and the gods (ta pros tous theous; Politics 1285a6-7). Consequently, the kings occupied a special position at Sparta. In detailing the kings’ prerogatives (gerea), Herodotus significantly indicates that they took charge of the preservation of oracles from Delphi: ‘‘It is they that keep the oracular responses, and the Pythian messengers share the knowledge of them’’ (6.57). As Anton Powell has shown, such a prerogative could furnish the kings with arguments with which to influence political decisions, and they could perhaps suppress obstructive prophecies, but, as he also notes, ‘‘The question whether Spartan authorities often consciously manipulated divination for their political ends is difficult’’ (1994:290). (On the oracle of Pasiphae at Thalamai, to the west of Taygetus, and on the political significance of the oracles that could be given to the ephors there, see Richer 1998a:199-212).
Furthermore, the kings were not the only ones to inherit public functions of a religious character. According to Herodotus again, ‘‘the heralds [kerykes], the musicians of the aulos [a sort of oboe] and the sacrificers [mageiroi] inherit their father’s trade’’ (6.60; cf. Berthiaume 1976, 1982). Herodotus subsequently returns to the heralds and tells us that there was at Sparta a sanctuary (hieron) of Talthybius, the herald of Agamemnon, and also that there were ‘‘descendants of his called Talthy-biads, who have had the prerogative [geras] of undertaking all heralds’ missions from Sparta’’ (7.134).
The Spartans believed that the qualities that enabled one to appeal to the gods with greatest efficacity attached to individuals and could be inherited. So, for the sake of effectiveness, they had to ensure that some functions of a religious character were transmitted within defined families. (We may think also of the manner in which some families, such as the Eteoboutadai, the Praxiergidai, the Bouzygai, the Eumolpids, and the Kerykes, retained defined religious functions at Athens.) But it was in the critical sphere of war, in which the future of the city was known to be at stake, that the hereditary religious role of the kings could be of particular value.
Gods and cults of war
Herodotus says of the Spartan kings of his own time that they have ‘‘the right to direct war where they want, and no Spartan can oppose them for risk of incurring pollution [ agos];... the right to sacrifice as many victims as they wish on external expeditions, and the right to keep the skins and chines of all victims’’ (6.56). This appears to show that in the fifth century the Spartan kings still had the appearance of sacred leaders of a sort, whose word had to be respected absolutely on pain of religious sanction. And Xenophon’s Constitution of the Lacedaemonians illustrates the distinctive religious role a king was still, in around 378-6 BC, supposed to play on military campaign (13.2-3, on which see Rebenich 1998 and Lipka 2002 ad loc.; for the date see Meulder 1989):
But I wish...to describe how the king sets out on campaign with the army. First of all, in Sparta, he makes sacrifice to Zeus Leader of the Army [Age;t(>r] and to the deities
Associated with him. If the sacrifice is favorable, the Fire-Carrier takes the fire from the altar and walks at the head of all to the border. On arrival, the king sacrifices again to Zeus and Athena. Only if these deities show themselves favorable does he cross the border. The fire taken from these last sacrifices is henceforth carried before the army, and it never goes out. It is followed by victims of all sorts. Every time he makes sacrifice, the king begins before dawn, because he wants to be the first to win the deity’s favorable regard.
After enumerating the important individuals who participate in the sacrifice, Xenophon adds, ‘‘So to see this you would think that others are nothing but amateurs in military matters, and that the Spartans alone are technicians [ technitai] in the art of war’’ (13.5).
Clearly, in the eyes of Xenophon (an Athenian, of course, but one with an excellent knowledge of Sparta, since he was a close friend of Agesilaus II) the techniques the Spartans used to render the gods propitious in wartime were indicative of their science of war: because their engagement with the divine was particularly systematic, they could be seen as specialists in war who left nothing undone to secure victory. Furthermore, as Pritchett notes, ‘‘The diabateria, or sacrifice at the frontier [i. e., that described by Xenophon], are attested only for Lakedaimonian armies’’ (1979:68).
In fact it seems that the Lacedaemonians were particularly anxious to win the favor of the powers relevant to or local to the field of the coming battle (Richer 1999b). It was probably with a view to this that they sacrificed systematically to Artemis Agrotera before a battle (Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 13.8, and Hellenica 4.2.20). Such a sacrifice had, ordinarily, to be made at the start. One can explain it by the fact that the frontier areas that were often the theaters of combat were rustic and wild, and so devoted to Artemis Agrotera, protector of the hunting that took place there. In the event of unfavorable omens (so determined by reading the shape of the sacrificed victim’s liver), another sacrifice could be organized, to another deity. In this event, the sacrifice might be addressed to a deity one believed to be particularly devoted to the area in which one was about to fight: thus the regent Pausanias called upon Cithaeronian Hera immediately prior to the battle of Plataea in 479 BC, according to Plutarch (Aristides 17-18). In such circumstances, loudly proclaimed requests and the explicit invocation of the deity to whom appeal was made were indispensable. At this point the leader of the army could demonstrate his intention to act in accordance with justice, and so avoid provoking the anger of the gods. Thus in 429 BC King Archidamus called the gods of the Plataean country to witness the justice of his actions (Thucydides 2.74.2-3), just as later, in 424 BC, Brasidas planned to act in a comparable fashion with regard to the local ( enchorioi) gods and heroes in Chalcidice (Thucydides 4.87.2).
Lacedaemonian conduct offers many instances of a clear wish to respect the will of the gods. Note in particular that at the beginning of the battle of Plataea the Lacedaemonians allowed the Persians to rain missiles down upon them so long as they failed to make a favorable sacrifice (Herodotus 9.61-2; for other examples see Pritchett 1971:113; 1979:68-70). Such a mental attitude can no doubt be explained to a certain extent, when we consider the manner in which, when at home, the citizens of Sparta lived their daily lives within a sacralized structure.
World History
